Fallout - prior games necessary to enjoy later games?

[Ns1]

I have never played any of the Fallouts - I am considering picking up FO4, but I read that they have kept up the storyline through the series.

How important is that, really? Or can I just jump right into FO4 and enjoy myself?

 

[shortylickens]

Nope. If fact if you played them in order you'd probably be angry at how story keeps getting sacrificed for action.
Not unlike The Elder Scrolls.

 

[sandorski]

Each Story is unique. There are references to previous stories, but only indirectly. So any one of them can be played in any order without missing much.

 

[TheELF]

Nope. If fact if you played them in order you'd probably be angry at how story keeps getting sacrificed for action.

Yeah well,
-get a purify chip because ours is busted.
-gets out,gets one,brings it back telling about stories of dangerous super mutants.
-can't have that go out again and deal with it
-goes back out,deals with it,gets banished for it.
That's about all the plot of the first one,everything else is lore you acquire by exploring and solving side quests/missions.
Fallout games never had much of a main story but always huge amounts of lore and explorable world.

 

[Tweak155]

Nope, you'll be fine. I really liked FO4... started with FO3 and did not like FO:NV.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Knowing vaguely that there's been a nuclear apocalypse, that there were several underground super-vaults created by a company called Vault-Tech (which also makes just about everything else), that had varying rates of success (mostly due to Vault-Tech themselves performing human social experiments on the vault dwellers), and that mutants were once people pretty much wraps up any 'lore' required for a given game. This knowledge comes from all three, all three, three (I think? maybe 2?), and one, respectively.

 

[maevinj]

Nope. I started with FO4 and I don't feel like I've missed anything.

 

[Stg-Flame]

There's quite a few references to Fallout 3 in the later games, but that's about it. FO4 has the best action. New Vegas has the best atmosphere. FO3 has the Republic of Dave.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I think your father was involved with The Institute in Fallout 3, and The Institute is largely what Fallout 4 is about. But it's not anything that factors into the Fallout 4 story. Only Fallout 2 followed very closely from a predecessor Fallout 1 (which is critical for understanding Fallout 2). Otherwise, the games are pretty independent of each other. There is one or maybe two missions in Fallout 3 that directly involves a character from Fallout 1 & 2, but that's it. There might be a couple of tie-ins, like in Fallout 4 you might read about a specific type of Nuka Cola only sold in the west, which is a soda you could get in Fallout New Vegas.

 

[Imp]

Nope, but you'll appreciate the new ones way more.

Fallout 1/2 are musts... They're dirt cheap, not too long, and it actually ran on my Windows 7 computer fine.

 

[werepossum]

Yeah well,
-get a purify chip because ours is busted.
-gets out,gets one,brings it back telling about stories of dangerous super mutants.
-can't have that go out again and deal with it
-goes back out,deals with it,gets banished for it.
That's about all the plot of the first one,everything else is lore you acquire by exploring and solving side quests/missions.
Fallout games never had much of a main story but always huge amounts of lore and explorable world.

I agree, plus I find Fallout and Fallout 2 completely unplayable (not technically but as a matter of enjoyment) due to the nature of combat and character movement.

If one has played no Fallout games, I'd actually recommend starting with Fallout 4 because its mechanics are excellent. Fallout and Fallout 2 are isometric RPGs, technically unimpressive even for the time. Fallout 3 and New Vegas are good games deep down - waaay deep down - but both are horribly buggy for most people, and unless one wants to play using VATS exclusively, the combat sucks major ass. For me, I very much enjoyed both games, but neither was playable (for reasons of stability as well as enjoyment) without many hours of modding. Fallout 4 on the other hand works extremely well out of the box. Although it's not much on actual roleplaying, more of an atmospheric shooter with a veneer of roleplaying.

 

[JujuFish]

I agree, plus I find Fallout and Fallout 2 completely unplayable (not technically but as a matter of enjoyment) due to the nature of combat and character movement.

If one has played no Fallout games, I'd actually recommend starting with Fallout 4 because its mechanics are excellent. Fallout and Fallout 2 are isometric RPGs, technically unimpressive even for the time. Fallout 3 and New Vegas are good games deep down - waaay deep down - but both are horribly buggy for most people, and unless one wants to play using VATS exclusively, the combat sucks major ass. For me, I very much enjoyed both games, but neither was playable (for reasons of stability as well as enjoyment) without many hours of modding. Fallout 4 on the other hand works extremely well out of the box. Although it's not much on actual roleplaying, more of an atmospheric shooter with a veneer of roleplaying.

I'm going to have to disagree with most of this post.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Fallout and Fallout 2 are isometric RPGs, technically unimpressive even for the time.

This makes me a sad panda. FO1 was the first game I knew of that implemented differing types of ammunition which were effective against differing armor types (which is still almost unheard of in games, why?) along with differences in weapons (sledges giving impressive knockbacks, knives working better against unarmored opponents, actual spread on shotgun weapons, etc). It also had far more branching quest line possibilities than most did, again even now. Sure it wasn't a 64-bit 3D engine but it was damn stable, provided highly tactical combat, and the games themselves contained a LOT of hidden ways to do things (pickpocket dropping grenades on children and watching them run into a bandit camp? Well sure!)

 

[Ancalagon44]

Not necessary from a story point of view but interesting from a world building point of view. You'll get to know more about the world of Fallout.

That being said, the story and to some extent the world is made up for each game, and there isn't always a relationship between the games in terms of content.

For instance, Bethesda made FO3 and FO4, but not FO:NV. Notably, New Vegas has several factions that do not appear in other games, such as Caesar's Legion.

New Vegas is probably the most buggy of the lot, but it's my favourite because it seems to be the best RPG out of the lot. All of the Fallout games are largely non-linear, but I feel like New Vegas offers the most choice in terms of your actions.

I have never played FO4 but I've played both FO3 and NV.

 

[Smoblikat]

Never played FO2, but ive played 1, 3, NV and 4. You dont need to do them in any particular order, but if this is your first one, I highly recommend FO3. To me it was the high point of the series, and is far more RPG oriented than FO4 is, which makes it a better game IMO.

 

[rstrohkirch]

I played FO3 when it came out and enjoyed it. Played NV when it came out and liked drastically more because like stated already, it felt like it did the open world RPG better. Played FO4 when it came out and it felt exactly the same as FO3 and Skyrim. I could only get about 20 hours in before I felt like I've already played this game multiple times and quickly grew bored.

 

[StinkyPinky]

I think with older games you often needed to have played them at the time of release (or near it) to enjoy playing them again in the modern era. I play FO and FO2 at release time and loved them. The combat was great and the humor superior to the modern versions. The earlier games just had more variation, like shooting a porn movie and becoming a pimp and drug dealer etc all in one town.

But....to answer the question the answer is no. They're mostly self contained and you can play FO4 without really knowing the lore or the setting. Each game does a good job of establishing it for new players. If you like the Elder Scrolls games then you will like the new Fallouts. It's basically Elder Scrolls with Guns, and that's not a bad thing at all.

For me? I would rate the games as follows

FO2 (once you get passed the god awful intro map)
FO
FO: NV
FO 3
FO 4 (didn't like the dialogue system, i thought it limited role playing)

 

[werepossum]

This makes me a sad panda. FO1 was the first game I knew of that implemented differing types of ammunition which were effective against differing armor types (which is still almost unheard of in games, why?) along with differences in weapons (sledges giving impressive knockbacks, knives working better against unarmored opponents, actual spread on shotgun weapons, etc). It also had far more branching quest line possibilities than most did, again even now. Sure it wasn't a 64-bit 3D engine but it was damn stable, provided highly tactical combat, and the games themselves contained a LOT of hidden ways to do things (pickpocket dropping grenades on children and watching them run into a bandit camp? Well sure!)

I have a really difficult time even considering turn-based gun combat as combat circa 1997. Remember, this is the year of Quake 2 and Star Wars Jedi Knight II - gunplay needs to be real time. Graphically, Fallout was competing with games like Oddworld, which made Fallout look like something from half a decade earlier, and Diablo which, while also an isometric turn-based combat game, at last looked modern. I'll grant you that for a turn-based RPG Fallout had highly tactical combat, but if that experience is what one wishes, why not go to 688(I) Hunter/Killer? Now THAT was a tactical combat game!

 

[Imp]

I have a really difficult time even considering turn-based gun combat as combat circa 1997. Remember, this is the year of Quake 2 and Star Wars Jedi Knight II - gunplay needs to be real time. Graphically, Fallout was competing with games like Oddworld, which made Fallout look like something from half a decade earlier, and Diablo which, while also an isometric turn-based combat game, at last looked modern. I'll grant you that for a turn-based RPG Fallout had highly tactical combat, but if that experience is what one wishes, why not go to 688(I) Hunter/Killer? Now THAT was a tactical combat game!

I thought the same thing back then. It was why I only bought Fallout Tactics -- it was real-time turn-based. I did love Baldur's Gate though.

I ended up buying Fallout 1/2 last summer before Fallout 4 came out. Ended up loving it. Might be worth another look. The Steam version I got worked fine on my Windows 7 machine and wide-screen monitor.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

They're all self contained stories essentially in the same universe but rarely do they cross over, most of the time because the setting is different. A lot of the same factions exist however and the same lore. More than anything I'd recommend playing FO1 and FO2 just for their story and getting to grips with the original humour, they're really fantastic games but you may be disheartened to play them if you played the more modern FO3/NV/4, in many ways 1 and 2 were better games just not visually, so playing them in order is a good idea IMO.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I have a really difficult time even considering turn-based gun combat as combat circa 1997. Remember, this is the year of Quake 2 and Star Wars Jedi Knight II - gunplay needs to be real time.

Those were action games, FO1/2 were RPG/Tactical combat.

Graphically, Fallout was competing with games like Oddworld, which made Fallout look like something from half a decade earlier, and Diablo which, while also an isometric turn-based combat game, at last looked modern.

I'd argue that Fallout was more competing with games like Commandos ('98), Baldur's Gate ('98), and Planescape: Torment ('99). Blizzard's past art teams were very, very skilled, so they did a lot of great work with D1/WC1/D2/WC2/SC. Also, Diablo was in no way, shape, or form, a turn based combat game. It was squarely live, and action-oriented. It was as different as Quake 2 was from FO1/2.

I'll grant you that for a turn-based RPG Fallout had highly tactical combat, but if that experience is what one wishes, why not go to 688(I) Hunter/Killer?

That's more military tactical combat, I guess what I was referring to is an RPG with some semblance of cover mechanics, differing armor/weapon types (not just simple rock-paper-scissors, but actual %ages and decimal values and other funs tuff), etc. Not one designed from the get-go to be 'MARINE SIMULATOR 9000' but just some thought put in to the tactical combat of the game. This extends beyond games like FO1/2... Most fantasy RPGs don't bother with things like 'npc standing in water takes more damage from lightning' or 'character soaked in water takes less damage from fire, but may take extra damage from steam' or something. The few games that do tend to use it as a selling point, it's only the obscure indie games that end up implementing it in a novel way that integrates properly into a good game (think dwarf fortress, a handful of games on steam I've got too).

 

[clamum]

Not at all. I had never played Fallout (or really knew anything about it) before 3 and I liked that game plenty and understood it. Each one is stand-alone but they do share a certain humor and inside references I guess. No way you need to play previous ones before enjoying Fallout 4.

 

[NoSoup4You]

This isn't really a big deal in most AAA titles at this point, the budgets for these titles are so massive that they need to appeal to the widest demographics possible... so they are absolutely designing for both the fans of their previous titles and for newcomers alike.

 

[Raduque]

Nope, you'll be fine. I really liked FO4... started with FO3 and did not like FO:NV.

I think FO:NV is the strongest of the modern Fallouts with 4 being the weakest.

 

[Tweak155]

I think FO:NV is the strongest of the modern Fallouts with 4 being the weakest.

I just was not a fan of the "wild west" theme in NV...it did not resonate with me at all.